42 Fall River factory workers splitting $1 million Powerball prize

CRANSTON, R.I. — A group of 42 Fall River factory workers are splitting the $1 million prize won in Wednesday night’s PowerBall drawing, a spokeswoman for the group said Friday.

Bridget Turgeon said the group from Taco Comfort Solutions in Fall River has been buying lottery tickets since 1999 but never won until this week. They took the prize as a lump sum, which comes to about $16,000 per person, she said.

The group bought 55 tickets, all quick picks, for the Wednesday drawing, she said. One of those tickets matched the five regular numbers, 5, 21, 57, 66, 69, which was good for the $1 million payday. Had they also hit the PowerBall, 13, they would have been splitting a $375 million grand prize.

The group of co-workers usually ranges between 42 and 44, according to Turgeon. She said the organizer of the group, who did not want to be identified publicly, had tried to get the two who didn’t play to buy in.

“He’s losing sleep over it,” she said. “He kept saying to them, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’ ”

The first shifts of the day at Taco start early, she said, and word about the win began spreading throughout the building when the organizer checked the numbers at 5:30 a.m.

“He almost fell over, almost had a heart attack,” she said.

She said $1 million sounds like a lot, but after the federal government takes a 25 percent tax bite and the state nips at about 6 percent more and the remaining money was divided 42 ways, it came to the $16,000.

It probably wasn’t enough to change anyone’s life, she said, but was it was enabling one participant to take his grandchildren to Disney World and another to pay for a recently installed bathroom.